BU Research Blog

By Prof Jonathan Parker, Chair of the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Ethics Panel

It can be very easy to become a little confused about research ethics processes within universities. The spread of research ethics review has grown inexorably in the UK since 2005 when the, then, Department of Health introduced research ethics scrutiny into social care following developments since Nuremberg and the Declaration of Helsinki which established biomedical ethical review processes to safeguard against potentially serious harms to research participants. The introduction of research ethics into arts, humanities, and social sciences, alongside biomedical and natural science research, has not always been easy, and confusions with homogenous processes have been critiqued. However, over the last 16 years, UK universities have seen the establishment of research ethics review processes through the formation of research ethics panels. These differ across universities in their operational minutiae and focus, although there are similar forms and underlying criteria in each to ensure that funding bodies, publishing houses and universities can assure themselves of due process and consideration in safeguarding both those participating in research studies and themselves.

At BU, research ethics is governed by an overarching university research ethics committee, which is chaired by an independent lay member. This committee deliberates the processes of research ethics in two operational panels and develops strategies and policy that are presented to Senate for consideration and ratification. It is the two research ethics panels with which most academics are likely to have dealings. We have one panel specifically dedicated to science, technology and health research chaired by Prof Sam Porter and a second concerned with the social sciences and humanities (including practice-based arts) chaired by Prof Jonathan Parker. Both panel chairs are supported by a deputy – Associate Prof. Dr Jayne Caudwell in science, technology and health and Prof Richard Berger in social sciences and humanities. The panels comprise members from across the university’s faculties and departments aiming for broad expertise, disciplinary scope and balance. Roles on the panels are undertaken for a period of three years, with the opportunity of renewal (maximum five years), to ensure there is continual refreshing of the membership, thinking and practice and also continuity.

Each panel meets on a monthly basis to scrutinise research ethics checklists and accompanying documentation, such as Participant Information Sheet and Participant Agreement Forms, from academic staff and PGRs (high risk) to ensure that ethical, moral and governance issues are met and to offer advice and support to researchers. The researchers, themselves, are invited to attend discussion at a panel meeting, which currently takes place online, and to present their studies and engage in debate about the ethical implications of their work and how potential harms can be prevented and mitigated. The process is designed to be collegiate and supportive and to ensure that research can be undertaken. Of course, attending the panel can raise anxieties but members try hard to put people at their ease and to keep the focus on developing the best possible research project in ethical terms. The panels are there to consider first and foremost any ethical issues that may arise within the proposed research and how this is addressed. However, it may be the case that questions are raised about the way the research is presented in outward facing documents or how the research is designed. The reasons for this are not to take issue with the academic thrust or to champion a particular methodology or research philosophy but to consider the effects on people and the confidence they can have in the research – so, they become an ethical concern.

What we look for in a good, ethically sound research proposal is:

• A clear, coherent approach to the research
• Explicit consideration of issues affecting potential participants, researchers, general public, discipline and university
• A concern for moving beyond from simply ‘doing no harm’ to actively benefitting people and society wherever possible
• A focus on maintaining dignity, privacy and confidentiality
• Ensuring people are not identified and that participants can be assured of their anonymity, or able to waive that where appropriate and wanted, when research is disseminated
• Finding ways for people often excluded or hidden from having a voice to participate and be included within research studies
• Emphasising the voluntary nature of participation and consent for involvement except in the most exceptional circumstances
• Sound data management plans and safe, GDPR compliant storage of data

The panels only scrutinise PGR (high risk) and staff research and do not get involved in PGR (low risk), undergraduate or PGT projects as these remain within the purview of supervisors, ethics champions (pgr) and the respective programme ethics teams (ug/pgt) within departments. However, where members of staff have developed specific projects as part of the taught curriculum these may be viewed by panel as they become staff research.

The panels are constantly refreshing as mentioned above and if you are interested in developing your expertise in research ethics you may wish to put yourself forward as a potential member. Our RDS Research Governance Team, Sarah Bell and Suzy Wignall, without whom the panels could not operate, circulate calls at appropriate times and should you be interested you should contact your Deputy Dean for Research and Professional Practice.

by Prof Sam Porter, Chair of the Science, Technology & Health Research Ethics Panel

One of the core principles of ethical research is that people should have a free choice as to whether or not they wish to participate in a research project, and that they should know what that will involve and how it might affect them before they make that choice. In short, they should give their informed consent. What we wish to concentrate on in this blog is the ‘informed’ bit of this phrase. In our work on ethics panels, we have sometimes observed applications in which almost all the concentration is on the ‘consent’ part, making sure that the paperwork giving permission to proceed is correct and watertight. This is unfortunate, because if someone is not properly aware of what they are letting themselves in for, then their consent is meaningless; it is ‘uninformed‘. This isn’t a matter of researchers deliberately setting out to hoodwink and deceive potential participants; it’s more a matter of them pitching the information at a level that compromises clarity and ease of understanding.

What we wish do here is to provide a few pointers that will help ensure that your Participant Information Sheet is written in a style that facilitates effective dissemination to potential participants of the information they require to make an informed decision.

1. Avoid blinding by science: researchers can be so immersed in their research that the language of their subject area becomes so natural to them they assume that everyone shares that language. Rest assured that they do not. It is really important to avoid technical research terms in a Participant Information sheet and to describe what you are doing in language that will be understood by those not involved in your research speciality.
2. Indeed, we would go farther than that. The language used in a Participant Information Sheet should be accessible to all those who are being asked to participate. Perhaps because they spend their working lives in tertiary educational environments, researchers tend to greatly overestimate people’s linguistic capacities. The US National Center for Biotechnical Information recommends that a patient information sheet should be pitched at a reading age of 11-12 years old. Indeed, this may not be young enough. There is evidence to indicate that the average adult reading age in the UK is 9 years old. Remember, this is an average which means lots of people have a younger reading age.
3. Whatever you may think of its editorial line, you could do worse than model your language level on that of The Sun, which has a young reading age and adopts a clear, no nonsense, if sometimes overly aggressive style. While use of the active voice and a conversational tone is much more effective than passive formality, a Participant Information Sheet should always be polite, respectful and invitational in its approach.
4. Pitching a Participant Information Sheet at a young reading age is not about being patronising but being clear. Indeed, the clarity that it demands is a very good exercise for researchers to make sure that, without the camouflage of technical jargon and convoluted language, their research project has a transparent logic and is practically cogent.
5. Of course, one size does not fit all. For example, if you were conducting research into a health service organisation, it could be appropriate to include more professionally-oriented information in a Participant Information Sheet seeking to recruit senior health service managers than if members of the general public were being asked to be involved. Still, we would recommend always erring on the side of simplicity and clarity, rather than assuming knowledge that people may not have. If groups with different sorts of knowledge and perspectives are being asked to be involved, we would advise that separate, specifically targeted Information sheet should be used to inform the members of each group.
6. You can check the reading level of your Participant Information Sheet on Word. We’ve done just that for this blog, and, despite its linguistic informalities, it has come out with a score of 43.8 on the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, which puts it in the category of ‘Difficult to read’! Looks like it’s a matter of doing as we say, not as we do! Though, in our defence, that’s not easy.
7. We tried harder and came up with: ‘People need to know what’s involved in being in a research project. They need to know before they agree to take part. Researchers need to be clear and simple when they tell them. They shouldn’t use jargon. They should use easy words and short sentences. They should think about using different ways to tell different types of people’. That got us a score of 85.2 – ‘Easy to read. Conversational English for consumers,’ which isn’t too bad in that it’s got us over the NCBI’s threshold of a reading age of 11-12 years, but that’s still two years older than the average UK adult’s reading age.

by Professor Richard Berger.  Deputy Chair and member of the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Ethics Panel

This blog-post is about why thinking about ethics right at the start of your project – rather than at the end as almost an after-though (and yes, we have all done that) – is crucial to having a successful outcome. First of all, it is good research practice, and an important aspect of your identity as an active researcher. If that doesn’t persuade you, then the requirement from most funding bodies (all the good ones, anyway) is that all projects must be overseen by a robust ethics process. The ESRC’s Research Ethics Framework regards ethics procedures as an indicator of the project’s quality. So, thinking through the ethical implications of what you want to do, right at the very beginning of your research, should ensure that there are no hiccups along-the-way. For Gary Thomas, “[ethics] is about the conduct of your work: it is about how you think about inquiry, how you think about this research project; it is about your respect for others” (2013, p.38).

BU has not just a responsibility towards you, but to your participants, and so it is vital that you plan well-ahead for their welfare and well-being. All research should be ethical, for as Martyn Denscombe writes: “[Research] should strive to produce something for the public good, and should never be frivolous, selfish or malicious in its aims” (2021, p.221). Alan Bryman’s book on social research methods – see References below – demonstrates very effectively that research which has been designed with ethics as an after-thought often leads to dubious practices, and unreliable and unverifiable data (2008, pp.114-115). As a researcher, you have a duty of care to your participants, and so the core of your ethics planning then, should be ‘consent’, and how you are going to gain it.

If you are going to anonymise your participants, then you need to plan in advance how you are going to remove any identifying markers; you will then need to explain this in your Participant Information Sheet (PI Sheet) – which is part of your ethics preparation, along with the checklist: “During the planning phase you must clarify and resolve issues of confidentiality and anonymity” (Davies, 2007, p.45). Similarly, you are going to need to plan for how you are going to handle and store your data/findings – and communicate this to your participants in the same way. So, spending some time at the start of your activity, thinking about this, should help in shaping your approach. If you are called to an ethics panel (and we are a friendly and supportive bunch!), then they will be interested in this relationship between the researcher and the researched.

Inevitably, further ethics issues often arise during the research project, so it is also important to think of the ethics process as a ‘live’ issue, and not something that just needs to be got-out-of-the-way. To help with this, Cheryl N. Poth has a series of questions, under three headings which you should be continually thinking about (2012, pp.26-27):

Respect for persons:

• How will you ensure free and informed participation in your research?
• How will you avoid interference or coercions?

Concern for Welfare:

• How will you minimize hard and maximise the benefits of your research?
• How will you protect the privacy and confidentiality of those involved in the research?

Concern for Justice:

• How will you treat people fairly and equitably in your research?
• How will you select participants, collect data, and report findings and avoid bias?

Finally, with the academic freedom we all enjoy, comes great responsibilities. Thinking about your ethical conduct throughout, and asking yourselves these questions continuously, should ensure that your project is as successful as it can be, and will have the most value, as a ‘complete’ piece of scholarship.

References & Further Reading.

Arthur, J, Waring, M, Coe, R & Hedges L, V., 2012. Research Methods and Methodologies in Education. London: Sage.

Bryman, A., 2008. Social Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Cohen, L, Manion, L & Morrison, K., 2011. Research Methods in Education. London: Routledge.

Crotty, M., 1998. The Foundations of Social Research: meaning & perspective in the research process. London: Sage.

Davies, M, B., 2007. Doing a Successful Research Project: using qualitative or quantitative methods. Basingstoke. Palgrave Macmillan.

Denscombe, M., 2021.The Good Research Guide. London: McGraw Hill.

Poth, C, N., 2021. Little Quick Fix: Research Ethics. London: Sage.

Thomas, G., 2013. How To Do Your Research Project. London: Sage.